Page 14 of Marriage Bargain with His Innocent
She opted forrefinedoversexy, and she did her utmost to ignore those lazily inspecting eyes as she tried to douse the hot fires of her embarrassment.
Eventually, when the pile of clothes had grown to a ridiculous amount, she put her foot down and resurfaced in her original outfit, hands on her hips and grim determination on her face.
‘That’s it,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m not getting anything else.’
‘Why not?’
The assistant had vanished to start the business of packaging all the clothes, and Matias patted the space next to him on the sofa—which Georgina ignored.
‘I thought women enjoyed nothing more than buying clothes.’
‘Not me.’ Georgina stood in front of him, arms folded.
‘So you hated every second of the experience?’
Georgina hesitated. She refused to admit that a part of her had ratherlikedthe business of trying on stuff she would never normally have worn, a lot of which hadn’t looked half bad. And a forbidden part of her whispered that trying on stufffor himhad made the experience even more exhilarating.
‘It was a necessary ordeal,’ she offered in a clipped voice.
Matias laughed shortly, unfazed. ‘Liar. Well, you’re going to have to up the appreciation levels,’ he drawled, ‘and eliminate the sniping rejoinders if we’re going to be playing to the gallery.’
He stood up just as the assistant reappeared, obediently waiting in the background for his imperious beckoning finger.
‘But you’re right. There’s enough there to be going on with. It’s not as though this little play-acting game is destined to be a never-ending charade.’
Georgina followed his eyes to the expensively ribboned, tissue-wrapped pile of packages on the table by the assistant.
There were clothes and shoes for every conceivable occasion. For expensive meals out...for casual dining in his mother’s garden—he had informed her that he would be getting a top caterer in for the duration of his stay with her—for walks along the beach, with his mother doubtless tripping along with them as witness to their rosy relationship.
Before, presumably, it all began going sour.
Georgina wondered whether they should have got a few specialit’s all going pear-shapedoutfits. And then she thought that at that point she would just slip back into her normal gear and that would say it all.
‘You’ll have to show up wearing one of these outfits we’ve bought,’ he said, without glancing at her as he paid for the pile of clothes. Transaction done, he turned to her. ‘I’m thinking that your mystery visits to London, under cover of darkness, would have entailed something of your new persona being presented as my new and exciting love interest. In short, would you have turned up in London wearing comfy work clothes and shoes designed to take on rough terrain and stamp it into submission?’
‘I honestly don’t know how I’m going to look as though you’re the light of my life,’ Georgina muttered through gritted teeth, but she did as told, peeking into one parcel and then disappearing into the changing room.
She had made sure, during the clothes parade, to keep some of her own baggy clothes on—the flowing skirt twinned with a smaller top, the loose-fitting top twinned with slim-fitting trousers... But now, when she appeared a few minutes later, she was wearing a complete outfit, and she looked...
Matias tried not to gape. The woman looked stunning. The girl next door was gone. In her place was a woman any red-blooded man would have wanted to haul off to the nearest bed, caveman-style.
He sat forward. Slowly. He knew he was staring but he couldn’t help himself. She was wearing pin-striped silk culottes and a small silk top, and the ensemble managed to leave everything to the imagination while sending his libido into the stratosphere.
She had had her hair scraped back before, but now it was loose, tumbling over her shoulders in colourful curls. The practical sandals had been replaced with soft leather flats.
‘You look...pretty good.’ Matias stood up with fluid grace and nodded at the assistant to bring the bags, while keeping his eyes riveted to Georgina for a few seconds.
‘Thanks.’
She knew that she was blushing. He was looking at her, for the first time, in the way a man would look at a woman. Sopretty goodmight not the compliment of a lifetime, but then this was a game they were playing. It wasn’t as though he was really attracted to her. But she was no longer invisible...
She reached for her backpack but he swept it up before she could fetch it.
‘We forgot about a handbag.’ He turned to the assistant and told her to get something in tan, price no object. ‘There’s no place in this charade for...’ he dangled her backpack from two fingers ‘...this.’
Georgina thought that was more like it. A brisk, businesslike approach to the situation foisted upon him.Bye-bye scruffy backpack—hello co-ordinating designer handbag.It was a timely reminder that when he had stared at her, sending her blood pressure soaring, it hadn’t been because he wasseeing her—not really. He had been evaluating her, to work out whether or not she fitted the bill for the part she was playing.
She had felt a frisson, the feathery brush of excitement as those fabulous eyes had rested on her, but there was no need to hear any alarm bells. He didn’t fancy her and she certainly didn’t fancy him. And even if she did—if she found her eyes straying and getting a little lost in those sinfully exotic good looks—then her reaction was perfectly normal, driven by her hormones and not her head. He was stupidly sexy and she was, after all, a normal healthy woman.
